Store boss stays away after teen comment claim
Ted Baker boss Ray Kelvin has taken temporary leave following new allegations about his treatment of staff.
He asked “if it was legal” to take a 17-year-old female employee “into the fitting room”, a former manager at the fashion store has alleged.
The company said it had been made aware of further serious allegations and its chief executive, Mr Kelvin, 63, would take a “voluntary leave of absence”.
An investigation was launched last week after hundreds of Ted Baker staff signed a petition complaining about Mr Kelvin, accusing him of “forced hugging”, making sexual innuendos and “stroking people’s necks”.
Mr Kelvin said the allegations raised some very serious and upsetting issues so it was “only right” the board should investigate.
It has now emerged that a woman in her twenties, who has not been named, resigned this year as a manager at Ted Baker having been frequently reduced to tears by her male colleagues’ behaviour.
She alleged that some men at work would scour women’s pages on Instagram and rate parts of their body.
“Ray himself would comment on girls a lot.
“There was girl who was 17 and he asked “if it was legal” and said he wanted to “take her into the fitting room”, the former manager claimed.
The first Ted Baker store was opened in Glasgow’s Princes Square in 1988.